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Category: Norway

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The last couple of years have been fairly turbulent and eventful for Bergen, Norway-based black metal pioneers Immortal. The mystic realm of Blashyrkh has seen a great deal of conflict and battle recently. Most of said battles seem not to concern itself with Blashyrkh although they are still fought in the North. As in the Northern courts. First Demonaz and Horgh battled estranged frontman (and multi-instrumentalist) Abbath over ownership of the ailing brand. The result was the uniformly and universally barbaric "Northern Chaos Gods" in 2018. Apparently in the intervening five years there was a falling out between co-founder Demonaz and longtime drummer Horgh. The sternly bearded, spiked, and corpse-painted Norsemen spent the pandemic years fighting each other over the trademark plunging the once unstoppable and war-forged Immortal in an extended second hiatus. Now that the legal dispute with Horgh has been settled Demonaz (effectively the sole remaining member through sheer will, determination, or attrition) is back with the suitably antagonistically titled "War Against All". Is the third time the charm? As soul singer Edwin Starr famously asked in 1970, “War, what is it good for?”

There’s no contesting the historical importance of Immortal’s contributions to the fledging Norwegian black metal scene. While chaotic and rambunctious “Diabolical Fullmoon Mysticism” was a clear delineation between their past in Old Funeral and the present, conceptually and musically. The band truly came into their own and made their mark with “Pure Holocaust”. It offered a barbaric fusion of early Bathory and Blasphemy informed war-like black metal and “Battles In the North” streamlined that sound to ice-cold perfection. Each individual chapter of the Holocaust Metal trilogy stands recognized as an undefeated genre classic. The band started to lose its way with the sloppily executed “Blizzard Beasts”. The recording debut of Horgh was indeed bestial and a love-note to all things Morbid Angel but a subpar demo-like production reduced it to a whiff rather than the veritable storm it was ought to be. After years of performing acute tendinitis caught up with Demonaz forcing him into a more managerial role and Abbath promptly steered Immortal into a more easily digestible anthemic black/thrash metal direction for the trio of "At the Heart of Winter", "Damned in Black", and "Sons of Northern Darkness". In 2009 the grim and frostbitten duo reconciled for “All Shall Fall” and the rest, well, is history.

'War Against All' and 'Thunders Of Darkness' open the record in a classic one-two in tradition of 'Battles in the North' and 'Grim and Frostbitten Kingdoms'. 'Wargod' is the prerequisite slow-building epic Bathory worship track and very much modeled after 'Blashyrkh (Mighty Ravendark)', complete with an acoustic guitar break and slight washes of subdued keyboards exactly where you’d expect. 'No Sun' is an apparent callback to 'The Sun No Longer Rises' but is nowhere near as scorching with its steady marching trudge. 'Return to Cold' continues with the mid-paced march and is a very thinly-veiled retread of 'Blashyrkh (Mighty Ravendark)' structurally, melodically, and otherwise. 'Norlandihr' is an instrumental harking back to the days of "Pure Holocaust". 'Immortal' is Demonaz' (very obvious) state of intent and his attempt at creating a contemporary hymn in vein of 'Blashyrkh (Mighty Ravendark)'. Since "Battles in the North" closed out with a Blashyrkh-themed song "War Against All" concludes with "Blashyrkh My Throne". Familiarity tends to breed the blackest of contempt and while “War Against All” is uniformly strong a slightly broader musical scope and some variation (do another gloomy ‘Unholy Forces Of Evil’ or atmospheric ‘Mountains Of Might’ already) would be appreciated.

Having alienated or exhausted any and all former members for this session Demonaz hired latter day Enslaved bass guitarist Arve Isdal who has a well-established reputation as a notorious mercenary unencumbered by trivial things such as integrity (artistic, personal and otherwise) and who's in the habit of lending his services in the blink of an eye to whichever project is willing to part with the right amount of money. Drummer Kevin Kvåle is a relative newcomer and he follows the template of Horgh by delivering an absolute stellar performance with an avalanche of blasts and a cascade of double bass. The bass guitar was actually clearly audible and integral to the music when it was performed by Peter Tägtgren on "Northern Chaos Gods" here it's conspicuous only by its absence. Thankfully, Demonaz can still solo with the best of them. Perhaps it would be wise for Demonaz to make Kvåle a permanent addition to give Immortal sonic continuity and hire session bass players for live campaigns.

Ever since Demonaz took creative control Immortal has, for better or worse, become enamored with its own legend. If anything Blashyrkh is a concept ripe for expansion and exploration. For whatever reason (mostly nostalgia, if we were to make an educated guess) Demonaz has become a victim of his band's own limited creative mythology and instead of building and expanding upon established and existing concepts the post-Abbath albums are aggressively and regressively intertextual (often close to being embarrassingly self-referential) as far as the lyrics go. "Northern Chaos Gods" was emblematic of exactly that and "War Against All" perseveres with the nostalgic pastiche route regularly bordering dangerously close on parody. Nobody’s expecting Bal-Sagoth levels of detail but the whole Blashyrkh thing comes across as more of an afterthought rather than the supposed central concept. For a realm of might and magic Blashyrkh doesn't come off as very fantastic these days.

Demonaz continues to recycle past assets with this all too familiar looking Mattias Frisk artwork. While not ugly or unfitting it's little different from the monochrome Jannicke Wiese-Hansen drawing for "Northern Chaos Gods" and the Pär Olofsson digital rendering for “All Shall Fall” before that. It beggars belief that Nuclear Blast continues to let him get away with it too. It makes you long for the halcyon days when silly band photos were de rigueur. Now is the time to expand upon these concepts instead of repeating them with little to no variation. Looking to the past for inspiration is one thing but reducing Immortal to name-checking a handful of choice phrases and visual cues is doing nobody any favors. Oh yeah, the iconic (and vastly superior) original logo is still very much absent and very much missed. Make of that what you will. Immortal might be undying, unyielding but new blood is very much needed.

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Plot: lovelorn office worker is seduced by his nubile neighbor… or is he?

Described by Variety as, “an homage to Roman Polanski with nods to David Lynch” Norwegian-Swedish-Danish co-production Naboer (or Neighbor, for some reason released internationally somewhat awkwardly as Next Door) is indeed a solid thriller. The comparisons to Polanksi and Lynch might be slightly hyperbolic and a wee bit optimistic in the grand scheme of things, but said associations aren’t unfounded. Next Door uses a well-known formula to utmost effect and while not revolutionary in any sense of the word, it pulls no punches and the twists it offers are always intelligent. No wonder then that it was showered with awards at the 2005 Norwegian International Film Festival, Cinénygma Luxembourg International Film Festival, and won the Kodak Award as well as the Young European Jury Award and Black Tulip Award at the 2006 Rouen Nordic Film Festival and Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival, respectively. Which is a really roundabout way of saying that Pål Sletaune’s third is just as much of a contemporary classic as its domestic and international critical reception suggest.

Borrowing plot elements from Polanski’s Repulsion (1965) and The Tenant (1976) with a slice of that nightmarish suburban claustrophobia from Lynch’s Lost Highway (1997) Sletaune himself always insisted that Alfred Hitchcock was his biggest inspiration. Next Door masterfully weaves influences from the old masters with a contemporary aesthetic closer to Love Object (2003) and Hard Candy (2005). Kristoffer Joner won an Amanda Award for his role and the three girls Cecilie A. Mosli, Julia Schacht, and Anna Bache-Wiig all turn in commendable performances. Schacht especially is mesmerizing as the trashy wanton seductress whereas Mosli and Bache-Wiig are given ample opportunity to show their emotional range. Schacht has that drowsy look somewhere between that doe-eyed Emmanuelle Seigner and Nastassja Kinski quality that Polanski favored in the 70s and 80s and 1990s heroin chic. Imagine a poor white trash Lene Marlin (circa 1998-99) and you’re about there. As far as international marquee value goes, the biggest name here is probably Michael Nyqvist.

John (Kristoffer Joner) is a mentally unstable and deeply unwell thirty-something. His girlfriend Ingrid (Anna Bache-Wiig) has left him – and he’s understandably incensed and embittered. He’s none too pleased that Ingrid has hooked up with their mutual friend Åke (Michael Nyqvist). One day his next door neighbor Anne (Cecilie A. Mosli, as Cecilie Mosli) sort of candidly asks John if he can help move a cabinet in their apartment. John is surprised that he actually has neighbors and that he never noticed them before now. After the usual formalities and once the cabinet is moved John makes his acquaintances with Anne’s sister Kim (Julia Schacht). The two sisters seem to know suspiciously much about John and his amorous trouble with Ingrid. Kim, being the wanton minx that she is, almost immediately comes on to him strong and easily seduces him. Now in too deep and caught in a web of deception John finds it increasingly difficult to differentiate between what is real and what’s in his head. It gets to the point that his colleague Peter Reis (Øystein Martinsen) wonders what’s going on. As the sisters close their web around him a terrifying secret is bound to surface…

Kristoffer Joner, Cecilie A. Mosli, Julia Schacht, and Anna Bache-Wiig all are regulars of Scandinavian television. Joner gives an especially simmering performance that’s alternately understated and unhinged. No wonder he won an Amanda Award for this. Bache-Wiig shines as the battered, scorned wife and is quietly threatening whereas Mosli and Schacht play two sides of the same coin. Mosli’s calm and collected demeanor and personality contrasts beautifully with Schacht’s electrifying performance as the trashy seductress. Judging by their performances here the small screen is where talent of this kind thrives, something which history has documented to be the case. In a supporting role is Michael Nyqvist - he of, among others, John Wick (2014), Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011), and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009). On the producer end of things there a few familiar names as well. Anna Anthony produced the acclaimed Swedish LGBT teen drama Fucking Åmål (1998) and Lars Jönsson was behind Lilja 4-ever (2002), both directed by Lukas Moodysson. The music was composed by Simon Boswell. He of Dario Argento's Phenomena (1985), Lamberto Bava's Demons 2 (1986) and Delirium (1987), Michele Soavi's Deliria (1987) as well as Richard Stanley's Hardware (1990), and the 1994 Philips Interactive Media/TripMedia dystopian surrealist cyberpunk video game Burn: Cycle.

Pål Sletaune was offered to direct the multiple BAFTA, Screen Actors Guild, and Academy Awards-winning American Beauty (1999) but declined because he didn’t think the script was good. At least he was in good company as David Lynch, Terry Gilliam, Mike Nichols, and Robert Zemeckis all had turned it down too. Perhaps it was healthy and wise of him to steer clear from the grinding wheel of the Hollywood machine. Many a director has been put through the ringer for the chance of directing a potential blockbuster but just as many end up as rapidly forgotten about roadside casualties in the pursuit of profit. Would American Beauty (1999) have launched Sletaune to potential international superstardom considering the cultural juggernaut it has become in the two decades since? Probably. In the decades since Sletaune has prospered on television and he seems content working on the small screen. He has no new theatrical projects on the horizon, as of this writing. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, Sletaune is not the type for big budget event movies. He seems most comfortable with smaller more low key character-driven productions that Hollywood abhors.

Perhaps the comparisons to Lynch are a wee bit exaggerated. Sletaune does his best to make all four principal characters morally corrupted and multi-dimensional. However for the Lynch comparisons to work the symbolism is not nearly enigmatic and opaque enough. Sure, the characters could be culled straight from an early Polanski feature but Next Door never commits to them either way. Anybody with the least bit of cinematic literacy will be able to figure out the major plot twist long before the third-act revelation. Not that it’s telegraphed or anything, but it’s far too straightforward and obvious to call it Lynch-ian in any degree. Where with a Lynch feature the revelation puts the entire thing on its head the odds in Next Door never really change after the third-act reveal. The revelation was hinted upon throughout and the entire thing kind of collapses in on itself after that. The final revelation in and of itself is strong enough but ultimately doesn’t amount to anything. Next Door desperately wants to be important or shocking – and to some it might very well be. In fact, Next Door is a lot of things but Audition (2000) it certainly is not.